Notes on helpful things I learned or was reminded of while writing these sentences:

❶ The dictionary also shows that 克隆人 (ke4 long2 ren2) can also be used for the word “clone,” but it is more of a sound approximation of the English word, whereas the other word actually means “to copy.”

❷ A variation for saying “efficiently” is 高效能 (gao1 xiao4 neng2), which is the same first two characters, but a different third one which means “capable.” My tutor told me that both are correct, but the way I used in the blog is more common, probably because the fourth tone of the ending character gives it a more emphatic sound.

❸ 剪 (jian3) is specifically the word for “to cut” that is used when two opposing blades are used for the action, like with scissors. When using a single blade, such as knife, the verb is 切 (qie1). To help me remember this, my tutor told me,

用剪刀剪，用刀子切

(用)(剪刀)(剪)，(用)(刀子)(切)

(yong4) (jian3 dao1) (jian3), (yong4) (dao1 zi.) (qie1)

(use) (scissors) (to cut), (use) (knife) (to cut).

❹ Here I originally tried to use a classifier of “one,” similar to how in English we say “a sample.” However, it was explained to me that whereas in Chinese a person could ask for 一個細胞 (yi1 ge. xi4 bao1) “one cell” to clone someone, because it is a distinct unit. Getting just one would be hard, so probably 幾個 (ji3 ge.) “a few” would be asked for. The choices for a portion of plasma are “some” or “a little.”

❺ There don’t seem to be prepositions or prepositional phrases in Chinese. Instead, the descriptor that would be part of the preposition in English becomes part of the noun in Chinese.

❻ The history of the word for “ninja” is intriguing. The concept of a ninja is Japanese, but the Japanese language uses a lot of the same characters as Chinese, which is the case for this word. Our English pronunciation comes from the Japanese word. The Chinese characters, however, are very descriptive, meaning “those who endure,” although the word order sounds backward to me as 忍 (ren3) is the word for “endure,” and 者 (zhe3) the one for “those who.”

❼ This Chinese word is created to sound like the original “gene” as much as possible, although it is my experience that such words usually sound very Chinese when spoken by native speakers! It may also be a pun, since 基 (ji1) means “basic, foundation” and 因 (yin1) means “cause.”